Better Call Saul's Most Tragic Character - Howard Hamlin

principles of morality are often reflected upon and better call saul and oftentimes characters morals are not only shown through interactions with one another but rather visually if a character's morals are in question or even compromised not only will we see this through a character's actions but also through something as simple as an ice cream cone but visual storytelling isn't the reason i'm making this video there are already countless phenomenal videos showing gilligan and gold's true genius when it comes to visual storytelling a better colossal so instead i'd like to discuss better call saul's characters in particular the character of howard hamlin who is howard hamlin this is howard hamlin initially howard is first presented as a foil to the show's main protagonist and even in the very first scene with howard he's seen arguing with the show's main character jimmy mcgill most of his scenes in season 1 portray him as a sort of villain of better call saul over the course of season 1 howard is built up as the show's main antagonist or at least the main antagonist of jim and mcgill because i don't care take this scene from season 1 episode 8 we see a younger jimmy who for five long years worked his way to obtaining a law degree from the show's university of american samoa he failed his bar exam twice but eventually succeeded on his third attempt officially allowing him to become a lawyer and the first thing he does after learning that he passed the bar exam was asking his brother chuck mcgill for a job at his law firm hhm jimmy's brother chuck appears to be proud of his hard-working brother he pretty much guarantees to jimmy and the audience that he'd be hired as a lawyer the very next scene we see jimmy celebrating his recent success then in comes howard hamlin to reveal whether or not he'd be hired at hhm the conversation is inaudible however through jimmy's body language and overall reaction we can tell that it wasn't good news and that he wouldn't hire jimmy and this is one of the driving factors that early on convinces the audience to root against howard in the very next episode after chuck and jimmy had spent countless hours building a multi-million dollar case they needed hhm's help so jimmy and chuck set up a meeting with the firm to discuss details and all seems to be going well jimmy is guaranteed 20 of the case's final settlement money and even a 20 000 bonus for his previous work on the case however when jimmy asks what office he would get in order to continue his work on the case the tone of the scene shifts howard's demeanor changes from his usual common collected self to a more professional look we see jimmy tense up looking not only confused but frustrated howard takes the room for himself and he explains that although hhm was the case they don't want jimmy howard continues to reinforce his in the firm stance that jimmy would not be hired and jimmy is clearly upset once again howard is made out to be the villain he refused to hire jimmy when he first got his law degree and now after jimmy is basically gifting a multi-million dollar case to howard's firm he still denies him and gives him no explanation as to why however it wasn't howard who refused jimmy he was simply taking the blame for it in fact howard was thoroughly impressed with jimmy's work ethic and later he was even more blown away by jimmy's drive and skills as a lawyer in season 1 of episode 9 it's revealed to the audience that it was actually jimmy's brother chuck who didn't want to hire jimmy howard simply took the blame for not hiring jimmy as was chuck's request for him we do see howard and jimmy apologize to one another for their actions and it seems they're mostly on good terms howard complements jimmy's work ethic and jimmy apologizes for the big line all seems to be well between the two in fact in season two howard strongly pushed for another firm cliff maine to hire jimmy as a partner and he got it and sure jimmy deserves the job for his work on the sandpiper case but without howard he never would have gotten the job so for the most part jimmy gets his dream partner job as a direct result of howard's recommendation and the illustrious title of lawyer was now jimmy mcgills to claim [Music] he had an office an apartment a company car and even a custom desk he'd finally attain a level of success similar to his brothers and maybe even made his brother proud something he'd been trying to do his whole life he'd finally become and gotten everything he wanted jimmy mcgill had become a real lawyer and howard hamlin was a huge reason for it but as jimmy spends more time as a real lawyer he begins to realize that this isn't what he wants the life that he's been chasing for so long simply isn't for him he doesn't fit in and it's not what he wants anymore he originally plans on quitting and he almost goes through with it already having his letter of resignation ready however he learns that if he quits he won't get to keep his 25 000 signing bonus but if he's fired he will so jimmy slips into saul goodman and develops an elaborate scheme to get himself fired he wears obnoxious clothes to the office in order to stick out he buys a blender to distract the rest of the office and he ruins someone's suit he even tries his hand at learning the bagpipes eventually after all of his chicanery he finally manages to get himself fired and this is a big win for jimmy he'd successfully gotten himself fired and was able to keep his signing bonus sure he had to ruin a few people's opinions of him and likely caused cliff maine some clients but saul succeeded he won however this is where a common cycle of saul's nature presents itself sure he achieved a short-term goal of getting himself fired but the long-term effects of his antics had only just begun remember howard was the one who recommended jimmy for the job and through jimmy's childish antics to get himself fired he not only embarrassed howard but he also damaged his reputation and howard is justifiably furious he takes his anger out on jimmy's soon-to-be wife and good friend kim wexler who had already been stuck in dock review essentially career purgatory see while howard had pushed for jimmy to sign with cliff maine kim was the one who pushed howard to recommend jimmy so yes howard had jimmy to blame for messing it up but he also had kim to blame for pushing so hard although kim had a plan to get out she worked endlessly to obtain a big client for hhm and mesa verde and brought it to howard him fully expected to get her old position back and continue her work for mesa verde but howard kept her in dock review and yeah this eventually leads to kim leaving hhm but it leads to more than that see hhm put kim through law school and gave her a job she felt she owed a lot to howard and hhm and kept that feeling through the early season to better call saw but the decision by howard to keep her in doc review is one of the first times we see kim start to truly hate howard and although she's still grateful for what he's done for her this is the beginning of kim's deep hatred for howard hamlin [Music] throughout season three we see chuck's mental health slowly deteriorate we see him more paranoid than ever and it even seems his legal mind isn't what he used to be howard who is a good friend of chuck and partners with him at hhm suggests that maybe chuck should consider retiring but chuck freaks out and threatens to sue the firm his incessant pride and need to be in control won't allow him to even consider retirement however rather than go through a lengthy lawsuit that would embarrass the firm chuck and howard managed to reach an agreement of which three payments would be made to chuck for his time and overall work he'd committed to the firm while hhm doesn't have the money to pay chuck howard does and rather than watching hundreds of people lose their jobs in the firm collapse howard pays chuck out of his own pocket in this scene we can see chuck has betrayed howard professionally but he's also betrayed their friendship something that was very important to howard we see his obvious feeling of betrayal but also a deep sadness resonating throughout him we notice his lips quiver and his eyes tearing he desperately tries to salvage what little's left of this once great friendship with chuck but he realizes that it's ultimately pointless he simply hands chuck the first payment and tells him that you won as chuck is forced out of the firm we see his health deteriorate even further without the law he lacks purpose and without purpose he lacks any compassion or meaning in life and this is most present in his final conversation with jimmy in this final conversation he explains to jimmy that you've never mattered all that much to me and chuck cements the idea that no matter what it'll always be a screw-up we see him destroy any trace of electricity and current in his house as well and this is all because of his mental issues and finally we see a hollowed and already dead version of chuck who denounced his brother and destroyed his house set himself on fire [Music] after this scene we see howard meet with kim and jimmy we see that he admits that he blames himself for chuck's death he believes that if he hadn't forced him out of hhm then chuck would still be alive howard truly believed that he was the cause of chuck's death and throughout season 5 we see him suffering through depression and insomnia because of it and it takes him over a season to get past his guilt that's been ruining him but eventually he's able to move past it and he even wants to fix all the wrong he's done and in order to heal old wounds howard finally offers jimmy a job something that he'd wanted for so long but this goes well not great at this point in the series jimmy is no longer jimmy he's almost fully transformed into saul he's already a cartel lawyer he pulls schemes for all of his clients and most of all his perception of right and wrong are essentially gone at this point any and everything is about the money we saw and any sense of actual justice is nearly gone jimmy is saul jimmy's wants and desires are pretty much gone anything jimmy may have wanted in the past he sees is irrelevant now so when howard offers solid job at hhm not only is he not interested but he's actually offended by it so much so that he destroys howard's car with a bowling ball and this is a catalyst for something so much worse towards the end of season 5 howard follows up with saul on the job offer however jimmy freaks out and he learned that he blames howard for the death of his brother you learn both jimmy and soul not only hate howard but they despise him jimmy blames howard for the death of his brother and saul is offended by such a meaningless job offer he so delicately tells howard that as he's already making thousands of dollars as a friend of the cartel jimmy goes off all of his built up anger and rage from his past with howard finally comes out while jimmy is letting out all of his anger and rage we see howard simply walks away from it he takes the high road he was able to move past his guilt depression and his feeling that he killed chuck he was able to move past it all and saw boasts about his superiority to howard we see howard has moved on we see howard's become a better man while jimmy is stuck in the past we see jimmy as hurt by the fact that howard was able to move on from chuck as he still blames howard for the death of chuck the job offer although offered with good intent is ultimately far too late to be anything more than an insult at least to jimmy and this is his final straw this is the moment where jimmy mcgill and saul goodman's hatred for howard set him over the edge in this moment and every moment after saul is agreeing to the later plot to destroy howard's life and career although this scheme hasn't even been brought up yet this is the moment that saul goodman killed howard hamlin but what about kim well howard and kim have a talk throughout their talk howard insinuates that kim isn't as strong and independent as she thinks he mentions jimmy destroying his car and his talk with jimmy he tells kim that dropping mesa verde makes no sense and rather than accepting that it was kim's decision to let them go he says that jimmy must have had something to do with her decision and yes howard is definitely insulting to kim here whether that was his intent or not but kim's reaction is even worse and earlier season kim would have been shocked and downright disgusted with jimmy's actions in fact she likely would have cut him off or something that bad now after years of their slow corruption kim simply responds with a laugh and from this talk we understand that the one character who used to be somewhat of a moral compass for jimmy and his actions is now gone kim is done putting up with howard and this is her moment this is the moment that kim webster decides to kill howard at this point kim and jimmy are so disconnected from what's right and wrong that they're both willingly helping the cartel they're both okay with the thought that lalo the cartel member they're helping will be killed two characters used to try and do the right thing now trick and steal from innocent people simply because they find it fun and their worst scheme of all led to howard's death at this point in the series sullen kim hate howard and over the course of the first half of season 6 we see their plan to jeopardize howard's career we see one piece of their sinister plot unfold at a time but we never know exactly what they're planning we know it'll ruin howard but we just don't know what not yet but while saul and kim plan to ruin howard we also see something else we start to see howard on a more personal level we see his marriage issues at home we see him struggling to keep his firm afloat we see him missing his good friend chuck we see him try everything in his power to squash soul and kim's plot even going as far as to punch it out with jimmy we begin to truly see howard not necessarily as a good man but at the very least a decent one a man undeserving of his future fate and as we slowly see kim and saul's plan unfold we understand their main objective is to ruin howard's career to ruin his credibility they justify their scheme with the sandpiper settlement money they've received but really it was never about that both kim and jimmy have lost almost any sliver of humanity that they used to have and if it really was about the sandpiper money they would have just waited as her scheme unfolds we see saul and kim paint howard as a cocaine addict as a man who throws prostitutes out of his car as a paranoid addict blaming an innocent man for her scheme that he had nothing to do with but worst of all we see why kim and saul really ruined howard not because of their hate not because of money but simply because they enjoyed ruining howard because they thought it was fun because they simply got off on it and after they've successfully ruined howard and his reputation the true consequences of their scheme are revealed we hear a knock on sull and kim's door instep's howard looking for answers as to why his career and reputation have been ruined why him what did he do to deserve any of it what could have possibly made kim and saul so hell-bent on destroying howard and howard realizes that selling him or simply soulless he realizes that he didn't deserve to be ruined he was just a victim of their fun the scene tenses the camera darkens the camera focuses on howard you get the feeling something bad is about to happen but you don't know what we see sull and kim's candle flicker the same way it did when harry entered only this time it wasn't howard jimmy rushes to protect kim as a haunting score accompanies a camera that still hasn't revealed who's entered the room howard continues his rant unaware of the danger behind him then we cut to howard with a blurred figure behind him we know who it is but howard is still unaware sonitel howard turns around that we see lalo salamanca in full detail as if he's revealed through howard's eyes we see lalo slowly pull out his pistol as kim and jimmy beg howard delaney hammer focuses on howard the music stops lala raises his pistol and howard is shot dead this is the true consequence of solo kim's plot not howard's career being ruined not his reputation being destroyed but his death howard was in that apartment because of saul and kim because of their scheme lala was in that apartment because of saul and kim because of their cartel ties both walla and howard were in that apartment because of saul and kim because of their corruption because of their greed because of their immorality howard is dead because of saul and kim and so is his legacy after his death sawing kim continued the story that howard was an addict his actual death is covered up with a tragic story painting howard's death as an addict who just walked himself into the ocean and that's all he'll be remembered for his body is dropped in a hole below a meth lab and any friends and family that used to know howard now know him as an addict as someone who needed help as someone who threw hookers out of his car saul and kim had won howard was ruined a completely undeserved fate met with an even more tragic tarnish of his legacy cemented howard as better call saul's most tragic character this isn't all to say that howard is perfect he definitely wasn't a villain and he didn't deserve to die but he certainly wasn't a hero he was never a protagonist and most of the time he can even be a great he acts above others and he treats people inferior but most of the time howard is decent maybe even good he's a perfectly moral character in a perfectly immoral world he's not a bad guy he's not a hero he's just decent and decent is better than most howard hamlin is truly better coleslaw's most tragic character thank you guys for watching my 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Channel: Misterz

Views: 549,494

Keywords: better call saul howard and jimmy, better call saul howard hamlin, better call saul howard hamlin death, howard hamlin death, better call saul video essay, better call saul cinematography, better call saul ending explained, better call saul seaon 6, better call saul analysis, better call saul jimmy, better call saul review, misterz, better call saul season 6 episode 13, better call saul breaking bad, better call saul ending, better call saul, better call saul theme, bcs theme

Id: UUVWZuCiPiI

Length: 14min 42sec (882 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 29 2022